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'Perhaps it was wanting when the tablets were hidden away in the wall; perhaps it was among the confused and broken fragments which Gan-kwo says there were in addition to the 58 Books which he recovered. As he found in the tablets of this Book a beginning of it and an end, he did not say anything of the intermediate portion being deficient.'

Woo and Show, going on to subsequent events, and important governmental measures of the new dynasty.

Ch. I. Pp. 1-4. THE MARCH TO THE ATTACK, AND CONQUEST, OF SHANG. THE RETURN, AND

MEASURES ON THE CONCLUSION OF THE WAR.

1. 惟一月壬辰旁死魄

, 'the first month'; but whether we are to understand the first month of the Hea year, the first month of spring; or the first month of the Chow year,-the second month of winter, cannot yet be determined. Ts'ae endeavours here to reinforce his view that the month is the first of the Hea year, by calling attention to the language,

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and not E; but this circumstance is of little weight. 壬辰 is the calendaric

name of the day, and it was

(read p'ang,

Ying-tă was thus of opinion that the Book was deficient; but it does not appear that he had any doubts as to the relative order in which the several portions stand. He thought some tablets were lost; but did not suppose that any of those preserved had been displaced. In the Sung dynasty, however, the critics assumed not only that there were portions missing, but that the remaining tablets were all disordered and confused. Ch'ing E-ch'uen (I), Lew Gan-she), and others, had their several ways of arranging them so as to produce a consistent narrative; and Ts'ae Ch'in, profiting by the determinations of his master Choo He, produced an edition of the Book, which has superseded the old one in the copies of the Shoo which are now taught in schools. It will be found, with a translation, in an appendix. Scholars of the present dynasty for the most part acquiesce in his views, when they do not discard the old text altogether. There are some, however, who think they can improve, the beginning of the birth of light,' on him, and Wang Loo-chae has given a disposition of the paragraphs somewhat different in his edition of Doubts about the Shoo.' Maou Ke-ling will not admit either of disorder or defect in the Book. He has certainly proved by references to the and the

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So far it is established that the

disorder in the parts which the Sung critics

3d tone,=, 'near to''close by '),
next to the day of the dead disk.' This ex-
pression is generally understood to be descriptive
of the first day of the new moon. In p. 4 we
find the phrase
find the phrase, denoting the 15th
day or full moon. In p. 2, again, we have

as denoting the third day, when the moon first becomes visible. It is clear therefore that the term魄 was applied to the disk of the moon from the the time it began to wane until the new moon reappeared. How it came to be so used, I do not perceive. The has

instead of A, but pronounced in the same way;

and in the dict. we find the definition quoted,

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complained of and tried to remedy,--if indeed of the moon when dark is called '

we should call it disorder,--existed even during the Chow dynasty. Maou says, 'If the text be not good, we have only to be content with it as it is. In this he is right. The ingenuity of the critics has not been of service either to history or the classic.

CONTENTS. Those are summarily and correctly stated in the prefatory Notice. King Woo smote Yin; and the narrative of his proceeding to the attack, and of his return and sending his animals back to their pastures, with his governmental measures, form 'The Completion of the War. The whole is divided in Yungching's Shoo into 9 parr., which I have rearranged in 10, including them also in three chapters. The first chapter, containing 4 parr., consists of brief historical notes of the commencement and close of Woo's expedition. The second also contains 4 parr., and gives the address (or a part of it) delivered by Woo to his nobles and officers on occasion, we may suppose, of their solemn recognition of him as emperor, and of his confirming some of them in their old investitures or appointments, and giving new ones to others. The third, in the two concluding parr., is again historical, and relates several incidents of the battle between

[Fan Sze-lin (潘士遴) observes that

after the 1st day of the moon, the light went on to grow, and the darkness of her disk (L) to disappear; that if the previous month was 'great' (consisted, that is, of 30 days), then on the second day of the month, the 'light' began. He concludes that this was the case here, and

that the day denoted by旁死魄

was not

the second but the first day of the month. The editors of Yung-ching's Shoo are inclined to agree with him, saying it is more natural and in rule to find a specification of the first day of the month than of the second. This view does not seem unlikely.]

越翼日癸已越及;翼日 明日,‘the morrow: 癸已 followa 壬 in the calendar. 王朝步自周

-, 'to travel,' 'to march;

is, literally, the king paced it.' Jis understood to stand here for Woo's capital,

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2 In the fourth month, at the first appearance of the moon, the king came from Shang to Fung, when he hushed all the movements

of war, and attended to the cultivations of peace. He sent back his horses to the south of mount Hwa, and let loose his oxen in the open country of T'aou-lin, showing the empire that he would not use them again.

and cut the head off with his 'yellow' battleaxe, and made it be suspended from the staff of a large white flag. Much in the same way he dealt with the bodies of two of Show's concubines who had killed themselves; and then returned to his army. These accounts are taken from the Historical Records,' and are put down by subsequent writers as lying legends, inconsistent with Woo's character.

called Haou , which was 30 le south of the pres. dis. city of Ch'ang-gan, dep. of Segan, Shen-se. In the next par. it is stated that he returned to Fung, which had been the capital of his father Wan, in the pres. dis. of Hoo (), of the same dep. The two places were only about 8 miles apart; Haou on the east of the river Fung, and Fung on the west of it. The site of Haou was converted into a lake (great state, attended by his brothers and the

by the emp. Woo (

B.C. 139-87) of the Han dyn. 于 伐商-于-往‘to go,' 'to proceed’

[We saw, in the 'Great Speech,' Pt. ii., p. 1, that on the day mow-woo, the 28th day of the

1st month, king Woo halted on the northern bank of the Ho. On that same day he had

Next day he entered the capital of Shang in

chiefs of his host, and solemnly accepted the charge of the empire. It was said to him, on behalf of all the nobles, "The last descendant of the House of Yin having destroyed and disowned the bright virtue of his forefathers, having insolently discontinued the sacrifices to the spirits, and having blindly tyrannized over the people of Shang, the report of his deeds ascended to the great God in heaven'

crossed the river;-see the 9th par. below. The FX . On this,

distance from Haou to Măng-tsin is said by Ying-tă to be 1,000 le, and I have seen another estimate of it at 900 le. Taking the larger number, we have 25 days' marches, of 40 le each, or about 14 miles per day, which could be accomplished without difficulty. Five days after (the day, Woo drew up his army in the borders of Shang, and waited for the dawn of the next morning, the 4th day of the 2d month, to decide the contest between himself and Show.

顯聞于天皇上帝).

Woo bowed twice, with his head to the ground, and said, It is right that I should change the great charge; that I should put away the House of Yin, and receive myself the great appointment of Heaven' He then again bowed twice, with his head to the ground, and went

out.

In this way king Woo took on himself the One of his first sovereignty of the empire. steps was to appoint Show's son, Luh-foo

appears to have remained in the capital of Shang between two and three months, employed in the measures described in the last two parr. of this Book, and in others requisite to the establishment of the dynasty of his House.]

After the battle, Show fled to the 'Stag), prince over the domain of Yin; and he tower,' and burned himself to death. In the mean time, Woo, having received the congratulations of the princes on his victory, pressed on after the tyrant. On arriving at the capital, the people were waiting outside the walls in anxious expectation, which the king relieved by sending his officers among them with the words, Supreme Heaven is sending down

Pp. 2, 3. Measures in the 4th month showing that the war was over.

blessing' (上天降休). The multitudes 哉(一始)生明一

reverently saluted the king, who bowed to them in return, and hurried on to the place where the dead body of Show was. Having discharged three arrows at it from his chariot, he descended, struck the body with a light sword,

2. 旣四月

was the 3d day

of the month;-see on the last par. But there had been an intercalary month between This is proved in the following manner. The day Tof par 3 evidently belonged to the 4th

3

成大戌三豆奔侯廟

C

◎告柴日走衞邦于丁

旣武望庚越執駿甸周未

On the day ting-we he sacrificed in the ancestral temple of Chow, when the chiefs of the imperial domain and of the teen, how, and wei domains all hurried about, carrying the dishes. Three days after, he presented a burnt-offering to Heaven, and worshipped towards the mountains and rivers, solemnly announcing the successful completion of the war.

,

month. 甲子 the day of the battle of 'number;-see K'e-ling's 古文尙書寃 詞:Bk. IV, on the point.

Muh, was the 4th of the 2d month, which we may suppose had 29 days. This brings us to

寅, for the first day of the next month, the 18th of which was a 丁未 day; but it could not be that of the text. We have to count 60

days before we come to the next

day,

which would consequently be in the 5th month,

unless there was an intercalary month between

[In the Le Ke, the Bk. 4, pp. 29–22, there is an expansion of the text, celebrating

King Woo. It may be that the author had before him some copy of the 武成

current in

the Han dynasty, fuller than that which we

now have. In p. 19, it is said-馬散之

the Ist and the 4th. The chronologers are all 華山之陽而弗復乘牛

agreed in supposing that there was a second

month intercalary this year; and consequently

the ting-we day of the text would be the 18th

or 19th of the fourth month. 至于豐

-Fung was the capital of Wan and here was the ancestral temple of the princes of Chow. That was the reason, as we gather from the next par., why Woo went in the first place to

Fung and not to Haou. 偃武修文

之野而弗復服車 而 之府庫而弗復

用倒載干戈包之以虎皮 然後天下知武王之不

復用兵也

3. Various sacrifices, and solemn announcement

–in the rest of the par. we have two instances of the completion of the War. 丁未沁于

of the ‘hushing of military measures,' (偃 is 周廟-the fourth month would conumence

defined by臥, to sleep,' 'to send to sleep);' on 已丑 or 庚寅, according as the pre

what the cultivations of peace' were, we are not told.

華山之陽=華山之 vious one had 29 or 30 days, and 丁未

南‘the south of mount Hwa.' For mount Hwa, see on 'The Tribute of Yu,' Pt. i., p. 62. The 'wild of Taou-lin'(Peach forest) is

referred to the country about the hill of Muh

new

(牧牛), called also the hill of K'wa-foo

(夸奖), in the south-east of the pres. dep. of Tung-chow (同州). An objection has been taken to the credibility of the account here on the ground that the horses and oxen belong

ed to the people,—were only contributed by them for the expedition; and that to appropriate them to himself in this way, instead of return. ing them to their owners, was an act befitting Show, and not at all to be expected from king Woo. But we may be sure these were Woo's own horses and oxen. If it be granted that the people did supply a portion of the animals used in war, the sovereign himself furnished a larger

have been the 18th or 19th day. Before setting out on his enterprise, Woo had sacrificed to his father, to God and the earth (The Great speech,' Pt. i., p. 10); here at its close he sacrifices, and, we may suppose, gives thanks at the same altars.

邦甸侯衛-see the account

and figure on pp. 148, 149, of the divisions of

the empire under the Chow dynasty. By the 邦

we must understand, I think, the central

division,-the imperial domain () and
we have three of the divisions
甸侯衞
which lay beyond it,-a part for the whole of the

five domains which constituted the 'middle king-
dom.' We cannot account for the irregularity
of the order in which they are given. After
we must understand
chiefs,' which I have supplied in the translation.

equivalent to 'the

4

呼曰王周命工暨家庶生 群嗚若○于受百君邦魄

After the moon began to wane, the hereditary princes of the

various States, and all the officers, received their appointments from Chow.

Gan-kwo defines by, 'great,' 'in

great state;' it is better to take it with Ts'ae 6 as

after the 爾雅

豆蓮

see Con. Ana., VIII, iv. 3. It was an honour to the chiefs and princes to assist at the sacrifice.

越三日庚戌-between ting-we

and kăng-seuh there are two days, so the latter was the 21st or 22d day of the month. In Bk.

XII, p. 2, we have 丙午越三日戊 申, where both ping-woo and mow-shin must

be reckoned to make up the three days;-the writers had different methods equally legitimate, of reckoning. 柴一 -see on the 'Can. of

Shun,' p. 8.

望 -see on the 'Can. of Shun,'

p. 6. This sacrifice was offered, I suppose, at

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(some editions have, incorrectly) .

the altar of the great earth, mentioned in Bk. I, 死霸粤五日甲子咸劉商

Pt. i., p. 10. 4. The princes and officers

receive their appointments from Woo, as the first. It is then stated that there was a emperor of the dynasty of Chow.

born-after the full moon. The day indicated

-the moon begins to wane,-the darkness is

in the text is generally supposed to be the 16th; but Chin Leil, observes that, if that had been

魄, corresponding to 生明 in p. 2. He

second month intercalary in this year which be

gan with the day; that the third month

began with, and the fourth month with

the day, the phrase would have been. Then comes the third quotation.— 惟四月旣旁生霸六日 庚戌武王燎于周廟翼日 辛亥礼于天位粤五日乙 卯乃以庶國馘于周廟

would lay stress therefore on the, as show

ing that the darkness was not only born, but

had made some growth; and fixes the day as
the 17th. But here there is a difficulty.-The
historian goes backward instead of forward with
his narrative; the 17th would precede the day
ting-we. Ying-tă calls attention to this cir-
cumstance, he himself supposing the day to be
the 16th; and in the fact of the chiefs assisting
at the sacrifice in the ancestral temple he sees
a proof that they had previously received their
appointments from king Woo.
myself extend the force of the much more
than Chin does. Why may not the phrase
indicate any between the 15th and

I should

the end of the month, when we should come to the 'death' or end of the darkness? The his torian has chosen to indicate thus indefinitely the day when the princes and officers received their appointments from Woo. As to their assisting on the day ting-we at his sacrificial service, that might very well be. Things could not be done in order while the revolution was

In the fourth month, on the day kăng-seuh, the 6th after the 16th, king Woo made a fire in the ancestral temple of Chow. Next day,the day sin-hae,-he sacrificed at the altar of Heaven; and five days after, on the day yihmaou,-attended by the princes of the various States, he sacrificed and presented the heads of Show and his two concubines in the ancestral temple.' Here the intimations of time are different from those which we have in parr. 3 and 4 of the text. Possibly the here

theof par. 3;—and they are referred to the same day. We cannot trace any other correspondencies.

The question occurs,-Where did Lew Hin find the copy of the, from which he made these quotations? Yen Sze-koo supposed they were taken from some copy of Fuh-shang's

in progress. From the taking the field against Books; see an art. by Choo He in the t

Show down to the new commissioning of rulers under the new supremacy, all was irregular and

But Fuh-shang did not possess the

德其撫勳其肇前

惟力方誕文勤基烈土惟 九小夏膺王 至公先

年邦大天克家迹于王 大型 邦 命成我王大克建 統其畏以厥文季王篤邦

5 II. The king spake to the following effect:“Oh! ye host of princes, the first of our kings founded the State and commenced our territory. The duke Lew was able to consolidate the merits of his predecessor. But it was the king Tae who laid the foundations of the imperial inheritance. Then king Ke was diligent for the royal House; and my deceased father, king Wăn, completed his merit, and received the great decree of Heaven to soothe the regions of the great bright land. The great States feared his strength; the small States cherished his virtue. In nine years, however, the whole

Yen Jǒ-ku, Wang, Ming-shing and others think | the same. K'e was not a king, but Woo here

Text,' which Gan-kwǒ had transcribed, and

that he took them from the copy of the Old calls him so. 篤前烈=篤厚 which was preserved in one of the imperialK'e is to be understood as repositories. We know that Lew Hin had

access to this copy, and it is possible that he Lew's 'predecessor.' 大王,一by king might quote from the武成in it.

There is, however, another way of accounting

for the quotations. There was a copy of the
武成
current in the Han dynasty, as we
have seen there was of the
Kang-

shing states that it was lost in the reign of the

founder of the eastern Han, A.D. 25-57. We

do not know whence it was derived. From the

last quotation we may suppose that its character was like that of the copy of the Great Speech,' which likewise disappeared. It appears to me

more likely that the quotations by Lew Hin

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Tae is intended Tan-foo.肇基王迹

'first founded the traces of imperial sway;'

see in the She King, the 'Praise-songs of Loo,' iv. 2, where it is said of T'ae that 'he dwelt on the south of mount Ke, and began to shear the dynasty of Shang' (居岐之陽實 始翦商);-not, say the critics, that he

had any intention to do it, but the hearts of the people were so drawn to him, that they became

devotedly attached to his House. 文考

were made from it than from the Old Text' to 文王‘my deceased father Wăn, the king

which he had access. The authority of the received text, such as it is, need not be affected by the differences between it and the passages

in the 律歴志

Ch. II. Pp. 5,7. ADDRESS OF KING WOO TO

THE PRINCES, ON GIVING THEM THEIR INVES-
TITURES.

5.

Wan.' We cannot well repeat the honorary title in the translation.

received';膺=受

誕膺,' greatly

以撫方夏

大畏

以撫安四方諸夏 on 夏

see the Can. of Shun, p. 20. Sketch of the history of the

House of Chow from its founder to king Woo.

See the introductory note to Bool I. on the 其力小邦懷其德-this passnge

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name of this Part of the Shoo. 先王 'the is quoted, as from the Books of Chow,' in the former king,''the first of our kings Ying- 左傳襄三十二年 大

tă says that we know that Ke, Shun's min. of- 'the great united whole' 未集一

agriculture, must be intended, because he is

mentioned before the duke Lew. The predi-未集於其身 was not yet collected cates 建邦啟土-sufficiently indicate in his person.’

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